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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26166091">Black Hole Haunting</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivelle/pseuds/Rivelle'>Rivelle</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Mass Effect Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>#healthycopingmechanisms, Mass Effect 1, Minor Violence, PTSD!Shepard, batarians killed her family, everyone except shep and anderson are only briefly in the background, extremely early game, no realtionships other than an Anderson/Shepard Father/Daughter relationship, now shep kills batarians, only goes until shep takes over the Normandy, tw: PTSD</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:14:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,789</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26166091</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivelle/pseuds/Rivelle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Batarians attack Mindoir. Shepard survives. ONLY Shepard survives.<br/>Anderson is part of the Alliance rescue team. He finds himself adopting a traumatized kid.<br/>Shepard's hatred of batarians haunts her early career. She makes choices. Anderson keeps on loving her.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was maybe gonna be a long ongoing thing throughout the whole first game, or possibly trilogy, looking at how Shepard deals with her past and her trauma and her anger and suddenly being shouldered with the responsibility of the entire galaxy's survival (including the batarians, hello Arrival DLC).<br/>But. It's been sitting in my WIPs for an eon, so this is probably all there's going to be.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Breathing silently was hard when the dead-weight of a corpse was crushing your lungs. Lena Shepard's 16 year old daughter focused on the familiar scent of the sweater she tugged close around her, but it wasn’t enough to block out the stench of fire and death. Bodies were all around her, and though the one on top of her (she wouldn’t make the connection between the sweater and the body, she <em>wouldn’t</em>) blocked her vision, she could still hear the crackle of fire devouring her home colony of Mindoir. Batarian voices came and went, and the youngest – <em>only</em> – Shepard didn’t move.</p>
<p>She lost track of how long she waited before Alliance voices broke through her daze and David Anderson’s face swam out of the darkness and carried her to safety.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>The Alliance had no use for a 16 year old orphan. Come back when you’re 18, they told her. Until then, she could expect to be processed through The System. Anderson wouldn’t stand for it. She didn’t understand why he seemed to be taking personal interest in her (surely he had rescued people before? He was Alliance, that’s what they did.) but she wasn’t about to complain if it meant a bed to herself and hot food in her belly.</p>
<p>He had an apartment on the Citadel that was the most grandiose thing she’d ever seen. It wasn’t home, but it was safe. He wasn’t her father, but she didn’t have anyone else. She missed the familiar moments that had once annoyed her, (her brother mussing her hair, her mother constantly brushing at the dirt on her clothes… thinking about it sounded very cliché, but it had been hers,) but it was better than being alone on Mindoir.</p>
<p>Anderson didn’t plan for a teenager or any of the struggles that came with one, but he tried his hardest and by god he wanted to do right by this kid. There was something about her that compelled him to ensure that she was looked after, that she had somewhere to call home. (She was grateful, in the moments between self destructing or getting herself into bar fights at 3am.) He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw a softness to her when he slid a pizza into her room after waking to her nightmare screams. He thought he saw tears in her eyes that weren’t completely from pain when he rushed into C-Sec to get her out of the cells she’d landed herself in after yet another fight picked with a batarian. He couldn’t be sure. (But he was right.)</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>For her 18th birthday, Anderson took her to Alliance recruitment and helped her fill out all the proper paperwork. It was a part of his life, and now it would be a part of hers as well. She’d been excited about it for weeks.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>“Please, <em>please</em> we surrendered!” 24 year old Lieutenant Shepard met the four black eyes pleading with her, raised her shotgun, and blew his head off. His body was the last to fall in the long line of headless, bloody, batarian corpses against the wall. She had less than a quarter of her squad left, and of them none could meet her eyes. The cold fury that had filled her since she landed on Torfan (since Mindoir really, but ignoring painful truths had become a talent of hers) did not abate, and her CO’s expression of shock and fear only fueled her hatred for the race of slaver scum that had taken fucking everything from her. The Skyllian Blitz had cost countless lives of civilians and Alliance soldiers, and sure that was the official reason why they were making such a statement to the batarians here, but the Mindoir attack where her life had changed was the only thing on repeat in her head. This was personal.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>She was sent on mandatory shore leave after Torfan. The door to Anderson’s apartment (she’d never really been able to think of it as hers, despite how often he had shown her that she was his family) slid open to the smell of pizza. She had dreaded facing him, afraid of what she might see in his eyes, because he <em>had</em> to have seen the vid reports by now and she knew the monster they portrayed. The monster a part of her embraced.</p>
<p>She saw nothing but acceptance when she met his eyes. Anderson didn’t move to her, simply invited her to sit with him on the couch, pushed one of the pizza boxes towards her, and flipped through the channels until he found something they could zone out to. When hot tears started flowing down Shepard’s cheeks she slid down to rest her head on his shoulder, and the contact reconnected her.</p>
<p>This was home, and it was safe, and he was her only family. The cold rage inside her laughed.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>When she went back to active duty, Torfan followed her.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I move faster on my own.”</p>
<p>Commander Shepard felt the breeze as Nihlus Kryik loped past her into who knew what kind of mess, before looking to her CO.</p>
<p>“Have his back Commander,” Anderson looked unsurprised yet slightly exasperated at the Spectre’s disappearance. “At the end of this, he’ll be the one deciding whether you join him as a Spectre.”</p>
<p>Shepard saluted. “Of course, sir.”</p>
<p>She didn’t like anything about this mission so far, there were too many secrets, and Nihlus was a huge unknown in a combat situation, but if there was anyone who had her unwavering trust it was Admiral David Anderson. Find the beacon, figure out who the bad guys were (the fury in her hoped it was batarians), shoot the bad guys, take the beacon. Seemed straightforward, but her gut told her it wouldn’t be.</p>
<p>It had been 13 years since Mindoir. 5 years since her revenge on Torfan. She signalled to Alenko and Jenkins to move out, and welcomed the familiar shift in her mind as she went from being ship bound to being planetside, gun in hand, ready to take on whatever came her way.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Jenkins got taken down by a drone. A fucking drone. Did he even have his shields up?</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>“Geth? Aren’t they the VI’s the quarians built? You sure, Chief?” (Damn, no batarians today.)</p>
<p>Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams had just lost her entire squad, but the CO in front of her commanded respect and Ashley’s training was drilled in hard enough that it grounded her.</p>
<p>“Pretty damn sure, Commander. No idea what they’re doing out here, but they put my men on spikes. Impaled them ma’am.”</p>
<p>
  <span>Shepard once-overed the woman’s – girl’s? – pink armour</span>
  <span> (seriously? Pink? Who the fuck let that slide?)</span>
  <span>, the at attention stance, and watched the fear being replaced by steel in her eyes. She had grit.</span>
</p>
<p>“Alright Chief, lets go.” She could use a soldier with that kind of backbone, she had a feeling this planet wasn’t anywhere near done with them.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>There was a hole straight through Nihlus’ head. Because of course this mission would turn to shit so damn quickly. Williams nearly shot a dock worker for standing by and letting Nihlus be murdered by a fellow Spectre (apparently Nihlus knew him as Saren), and then Shepard nearly shot him for lying to her. (Was it this asshole's fate or some shit to die today?) She was getting real tired of this. At least there were more bad guys to shoot.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Finally, they found the stupid ass beacon. Shepard radioed the Normandy for pickup, but before she could even finish her sentence she turned around to see Alenko getting dragged towards it. Instantly she was running, diving at him to shove him out of the way (<span>fucking</span> force fields and unknown tech and <span>stupid soldiers</span>) and as soon as he was clear the whatever-it-was had her. Horror flooded her mind. The monster inside her rose up to bask in it.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Shepard opened her eyes, then quickly closed them again as a pulse throbbed through her skull and made the world spin. Fucking Alenko just HAD to try touch the weird alien artifact didn’t he. Couldn’t just let it be and leave it to the science people. Idiot. God her head hurt. She saw the orange glow of an omnitool through her eyelids and caught the universal metallic whiff of Doctor.</p>
<p>“What’s the damage, Doc?”</p>
<p>Doctor Chakwas hummed a little, but before she could say anything Alenko’s voice interrupted.</p>
<p>“I’m so sorry Commander, I shouldn’t have gone near it-“</p>
<p>“Alenko. Shut it.” Shepard cut him off with a glare. The anger in her tone made her head throb again. The pulse brought with it images of the... vision? Nightmare? Whatever the hell she’d seen saving his dumb ass. She squeezed her eyes shut again.</p>
<p>“Doc? I saw some freaky shit. What happened to my head?”</p>
<p>Chakwas began detailing what her scans had turned up, and Shepard tried to ignore the fury inside her laughing at the irony of the question.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Shepard despised everything about Ambassador Donnel Udina. His greasy, slimeball attitude never made her hand twitch towards her gun more so than when he was lording it over Anderson. Anderson was 10 times the decent human Udina could ever hope to be. Udina disgusted her. When he was done giving her orders, Alenko and Williams flanked her as she made her way to the council chambers, but at the mention of Saren’s name she took an interest in a nearby turian’s conversation.</p>
<p>“Garrus Vakarian.” He introduced himself as his boss walked away.</p>
<p>“It sounded like you were investigating Saren?” Shepard got right to the point. “Turned up anything useful?”</p>
<p>“Not yet, but I’m really close.” The turian’s double harmonics were surprisingly pleasant to listen to. Most other turians she’d encountered possessed their species’ apparently inbuilt hatred for humans, which laced through their secondary harmonics and grated her.</p>
<p>“Fuck. Well that doesn’t help much right now. If you find anything let me know.” Shepard blipped him her omnitool details as she resumed walking past him, ignoring the taken aback expression on the turian’s face. (They were usually good at taking orders, this one must not be a very good turian.)</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>The council didn’t believe them and Saren was a human hating asshole. It made Shepard furious. And on top of that, Anderson and Saren had bad blood, giving the Council even more reason to doubt their motivations. Because this wasn’t already hard enough. Shepard resigned herself to the task of running around the Citadel doing other people’s work.</p>
<p>
  <span>What a good little soldier she was.</span>
  <span> (Ha.)</span>
</p>
<p>-</p>
<p><span>First stop was a club, then a</span><span> med</span><span> clinic (oh well hello again Garrus Vakarian and Garrus Vakarian's beautiful headshot skills), then C-Sec to pick up a krogan merc</span><span> (</span><span>holy hell</span><span> he was at least 3 times as big as Shepard)</span> <span>and some info about a gang leader who apparently had info about Saren. Shepard </span><span>hated</span><span> this part of being a soldier. She was here to shoot shit, not run errands. What was the use of having an Intelligence department if she had to find the damn intelligence herself?</span></p>
<p>-</p>
<p>The sound of Wrex’s shotgun blast was still ringing in her ears as Fist’s body hit the ground.</p>
<p>“A lot of people have died because of him,” Shepard basically spat at the corpse, although she wasn’t entirely unhappy about her part in it. “He had it coming to him. Let’s go get this quarian.”</p>
<p>She didn't miss the aghast expression on Garrus' face as she passed him, and for a second she was right back on Torfan, faced with the fear from the remainder of her squad. Not of the batarians, but of her. She grinned as she followed the next marker on their information trail.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Tali’Zorah was a goddamn <span>child</span>. Shepard had to admit, after watching her handle those explosives so quickly when she realized she was in trouble, she was a <span>capable</span> child. But still. She watched the quarian from the corner of her eye as she was backtalking Udina in the embassy, and decided that she was as young and naïve, yet capable, as Garrus was, so she had no reason not to bring her along for the help. Plus it turned out the girl could hack like no one else. If she was gonna be fighting more synthetics (and she had a feeling that was guaranteed) having a hacking expert would be invaluable.</p>
<p>
  <span>“... and one step closer to the return of the reapers.” The unfamiliar voice recording ended and Shepard felt a flicker of familiarity and concern. Reapers. Well that didn’t sound good anyway, nothing called a reaper was gonna be friendly, but she felt a concerning horror at the sound of the name. She was sure she’d never heard it in this context before though. She was still mulling it over</span>
  <span> (and wondering whether they called themselves "reapers", or had been given the name)</span>
  <span> when Udina’s voice interrupted her thoughts.</span>
</p>
<p>“We have to take this to the council.”</p>
<p>Shepard was pretty sure her sigh could have been heard all the way on Mindoir.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Victory! Shepard had to actively restrain herself from laughing with pleasure at the news that Saren's Spectre privileges had been revoked in light of the news from the recording Tali had provided. She owed the little quarian a drink. (If she was old enough… and if Shepard could find something dextro, and how did quarians even drink through those masks…?)</p>
<p>
  <span>"… would like to make you the first human Spectre." Shepard blinked rapidly as she zoned back in to the conversation, realizing she was the subject of all three Council member's focus. Woops. Wait, a Spectre? Holy shit. David would be so fucking proud</span>
  <span>,</span>
  <span> of course she'd do it.</span>
</p>
<p>"About damn time." She said far more casually than she felt. She didn’t even really know what being a Spectre involved, but she knew it meant she'd be above the law and have access to some top tier gear. Hell fucking yes.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>"You’re stepping down? No. No I'm not taking your ship I'm not taking your <span>career</span> David stop talking crazy." Shepard faced the man who'd saved her life and stepped in as the father she'd lost, outside the prototype ship that had only been his for one mission, and fought back tears. David knew her well enough to pretend not to notice.</p>
<p>"You have to. The bad blood between Saren and I would taint anything I could find on him and the reapers, and besides, I'm too old to be running around saving the galaxy." David stepped a little closer and bumped her shoulder, smiling at her with shining eyes. Shepard turned away, unable to bear meeting the love and pride in his gaze. "You're a Spectre now. You did what I never could. You need your own ship and your own crew, who better than a crew you already know? You'll be <span>magnificent</span>." David's voice was low, but he kept it from breaking. Shepard leaned into his shoulder, staring straight ahead and letting his calm reassurance steady her.</p>
<p>When she had agreed to follow leads on Saren as the <span>first human Spectre</span>, she definitely absolutely had not bargained on doing it without David. (Which she really definitely absolutely should have seen coming. <span>Idiot</span>.)</p>
<p>"You know you can come home whenever you need to. I've still got that pizza place you like on speed dial." That did it. Shepard broke into a grin and looked up at him before throwing her arms around him. It took him a moment (David was stunned, he could count the number of times Shepard had hugged him on one hand.) but he recovered quickly and wrapped his arms around her, pushing his luck a little when he kissed the top of her hair.</p>
<p>The instant he felt her arms begin to release he dropped his as well, grateful for the gesture. (Ever since Shepard had come to live with him after Mindoir, she had been exceptionally particular about touch and her being the one to initiate it. It pained David not to have been able to physically comfort her through the whirlwind of the next few years, but he loved and respected the girl she had been, and the woman she had grown into and Shepard did not have the words to tell him how much that meant to her.)</p>
<p>Shepard blinked back her tears, took a deep, surprisingly steady breath, and stood to attention.</p>
<p>"Sir!" She saluted. After a moment, David copied her.</p>
<p>"Commander. Good hunting out there." David's voice was all military, and Shepard remained in place until he dismissed her. The familiarity grounded her, and as she turned to board her new ship, her thoughts turned to where to begin the search for Saren.</p>
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